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Gore does chicken dance 

                      VP evades but can't elude student's question 

                  BY HOWARD WILKINSON
                  The Cincinnati Enquirer

                                            School, of course, is for
learning
                                    things. Like how to hypnotize a
chicken. 

                                            The usual subject of
language arts
                                    in Sharon McCreary's fourth, fifth
and
                                    sixth grade class at Sands
Montessori
                                    School took a back seat briefly
Thursday
                                    to a somewhat reluctant lecture from
                                    the vice president of the United
States
                                    on how to make a chicken sleepy,
                                    veeerry sleepy. 

                                            Al Gore stopped in Ms.
McCreary's
                                    classroom as part of a quick tour of
the
                                    school's crumbling physical
structure. 

                                            After looking at the peeling
paint
                                    on the windows, Mr. Gore chatted
with
                                    students. 

                          Just as Mr. Gore was about to leave,
11-year-old
                  Hessam Akhlaghpour of Clifton piped up to tell the
vice
                  president he had heard him talking on CBS' 60 Minutes
about
                  how people in his native Tennessee would hypnotize
chickens
                  for amusement. 

                          “Tell us how to do it,” Hessam said. Mr. Gore
laughed
                  and started backing toward the door. 

                          “No, really, tell us how to do it,” Hessam
insisted, like a
                  mini-Mike Wallace. 

                          So the vice president, after warning the kids
“not to try
                  this at home,” told them: Hold a chicken's head on the
                  ground. Take a finger or a stick and draw circles
around the
                  chicken's head. 

                          “He'll try to follow the stick and, in no
time, he'll go
                  "cluck, cluck' and he's out,” Mr. Gore said. 

                          Hessam said he was satisfied with the
explanation. 

                          “I was just curious,” he said. 

Copyright 1995-2000. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co. Inc.
newspaper.